oneiric ocelot

Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot, is just an ALPHA 1, but, judging its daily work-flow, is clear that Oneiric is quite a busy cycle.

This weeks have been mainly about this transition process from GNOME/GTK 2.3.x to GNOME/GTK 3, and, after the light themes, Unity and numerous apps, the "stuff" that was missing has finally arrived: the application indicators (including appmenu) have been ported to GTK+3, and, the first visible thing that pleases the eye is the visual aspect of Ambiance and Radiance (they are looking great!).

Ubuntu 11.10 has already received "Unico", the new GTK+3 engine, Ambiance and Radiance have been ported to GTK+3, and, just now, Unity 3D 4.0.1 has landed in Oneiric with GTK+3 in mind.

Unity 3D 4.0.1 is the first actual release in Oneiric (the previous Unity versions that landed in Oneiric were just stable release updates, they were mainly bug fixes for Natty's Unity).

Ambiance and Radiance have recently been ported to GTK+3, and, along with them, Ayatana Overlay Scrollbars.

Ayatana Overlay Scrollbars were first featured in Natty Narwhal, but they were mainly focused on a few GTK-based apps, consequently, apps like Chromium, LibreOffice, Eye of GNOME, Mozilla Firefox, Terminal, etc were left to receive support in Oneiric Ocelot.

New applications are now using this fancy scrollbars:

Ambiance and Radiance, Ubuntu's light themes, have been finally ported to GTK+3. The new updated version (0.1.8.15) has just landed in Oneiric and, surprise, not only Ambiance, but also Radiance has been ported to GTK+3.

First of all, this first release is mainly about porting this themes to GTK+3, so, no major changes now, but:

LightDM, Oneiric's default display manager, has been updated to 0.4 version in both Oneiric and Natty Narwhal.

There are no major UI changes (LightDM is supposed to look shiny Unity-like), but only some optimizations.

If you want to keep up with the latest LightDM version and benefit from all the probably coming bling, you can install LightDM in Natty via its official PPA .

Few days ago, Oneiric Ocelot made the jump from Linux kernel 2.6.39 to 3.0, and, shortly after, the developers released NVIDIA 270.41 (a tweaked version of the initial 270 version) in order to fix the compatibility with the 3.0 kernel.

Ubuntu 11.10 ditched GNOME Panel and introduced QT-based Unity-2D as the default fallback, so, we should see in the Oneiric cycle many improvements and features added to Unity-2D.

Unity-2D 3.8.8 has landed in Oneiric just now and, it seems, that is following Unity 3D in terms of features, behavior and looks.

What is new in Unity-2D 3.8.8?

Deja Dup 19.2 (not yet default in Oneiric) has received Ubuntu One support as a backup storage location (automatically copies backup files to one's Ubuntu One).

To install Deja Dup, just visit Ubuntu Software Center, then search&install Deja Dup.

An awesome surprise is the integration of "Backup" (Deja Dup) into the System Settings (click the top-right shutdown icon-->System Settings)

Oneiric Ocelot has just made a big jump from Linux kernel 2.6.39 to 3.0 version, so, if you use/test Ubuntu 11.10 ALPHA 1 you should receive the new 3.0 kernel.

Regarding the 3.0's newness, Linus Torvalds explains that there is "NOTHING. Absolutely nothing" new, 3.0 "is *just* about renumbering", but "we have the usual two thirds driver changes, and a lot of random fixes", so "no magical new features".

At Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS-O), the developers agreed about Ubuntu/Unity's future goals (Oneiric cycle), and there are many news/rumors about how Unity will be improved, what features will be added to, etc.

But, what will actually going to happen in Oneiric's Unity (from a design perspective)?